The VVM project aims to develop test procedures and to provide frameworks and methods for the safety verification of automated vehicles. VVM is working on the use case of Urban Intersections and focuses on driving functions up to full automation of vehicles (SAE Level 4 and 5).

The VVM project builds on the results of the PEGASUS project, which addressed the identification and description of critical scenarios and their implementation in general test cases for highly automated vehicles (Level 3), using the example of the motorway pilot. VVM extends the PEGASUS method to Level 4 and Level 5 of automated driving in an inner city environment, using the example of an urban intersection.

The VVM project is also working on integrating the verification of safety as an integral part of the development process. Already during the development of components and subsystems, the testability, verification and validation are to be considered as design goals ("design for testability"). The resulting systems can then be tested hierarchically, which has the effect that when components are updated, not the entire system has to be tested again. This approach allows test requirements to fit a wide variety of combinations of components and to be implemented and combined reliably and efficiently.

The VVM project aims to establish a seamless chain of reasoning for the proof of safety and to demonstrate its feasibility. All possible tools from digital simulation to real world test drives are used as efficiently as possible. Efforts are minimised, cost and time efficiency is increased.